I think we have to make a statement not just in baseball but in our community that diversity is an issue that hasn't been fully addressed in the past and certainly has to be fully addressed," he says. "I think it's important what your actions are. That will really define the franchise going forward."
John Henry on the Red Sox past attitude towards race (2002)
When John Henry bought the Boston Red Sox ten years ago he was purchasing a franchise that was steeped in history. The team of Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Carlton Fisk, Bobby Doerr and Pedro Martinez to name but a few. A ball park that come opening day this year will have seen 100 years of baseball played on its hollowed green field. A team supported by a fanatical fan base that covers a whole region from Fort Kent at the top of Maine right down to Newport, Massachusetts. A region that was hungry to taste the success their grandfather and great grandfathers would recite to them in the aftermath of one lost season after another. But also a club that had one glaring negative on its record books, the intolrance towards African Americans.
The Red Sox were the last team to sign a black player, infielder Pumpsie Green, a full twelve years after Jackie Robinson broke the baseball colour barrier. The Red Sox had a chance to sign Robinson before he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, but as Robinson was going through his paces on the Fenway field a member of Management reportedly shouted out "Get those niggers off the field". The feeling of exclusion was not limited to the playing field but also extended into the stands where African Americans did not feel welcome. Larry Lucchino, CEO of the Red Sox, acknowledge in a interview with NPR that
We came into a situation where we inherited a lot of extraordinary things in the Red Sox legacy, and included in those bundles of very good things was one very negative thing, and that’s a history of racial intolerance.”
Indeed one of the first things that the Red Sox new ownership under John Henry did was to reach out to Black churches and communities in the area, organising visits by Red Sox officials to different minority groups around the region, As the NPR pieces pointed out, the Red Sox started and equipped a 16-team Boston area church league with 500 players between the ages of 10 and 14 as well as establishing Scholarship programmes.
John Henry and his co-owners’ determination to address the racism issue that had plagued his newly acquired teams in the past was noble and necessary, yet you can’t help but get the feeling that Mr. Henry never thought the issue of racism would once again overshadow the playing achievements of one of his clubs. In the aftermath of yesterday’s ugliness and the poor way that Liverpool have handled the Suarez affair, from the T-Shirts to Dalglish’s staunch defence of a player who clearly does not wish to help himself, means the time has come for Henry to be proactive in addressing the issue. I am not for a second suggesting that Liverpool fans or the club are racist but I am pointing out that someone in the club needs to take leadership on the issue and get the Liverpool back on track. John Henry has done it before and now is the time for the Liverpool owner to do so again.
